How to Know If Your Real Estate Agent Is Doing a Good Job

Most clients end up happy: 87% of 2025 sellers said they would definitely or probably recommend their agent, and 88% of buyers would use theirs again or recommend them. (NAR 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers; NAR 2025 Generational Trends Report) Yet when Gallup asked Americans in December 2025 to rate the honesty and ethics of real estate agents, only 17% said high or very high. (HousingWire, citing Gallup) People like their own agent and distrust the profession, which suggests a lot of clients are judging by feel. There are better measures. Here are the ones I would use on myself.

The scorecard

Communication: the thing most complaints are really about

Sellers who used an agent in 2026 rated responsiveness as very or extremely important at 77%, second only to trustworthiness at 80%. (Zillow Consumer Housing Trends Report 2026, Sellers) Among buyers, 44% were in contact with their agent daily and 47% weekly; 53% preferred text or messaging, 33% preferred phone calls. (Zillow)

The standard is not “answers every text in five minutes.” It is: an agreed channel, an agreed rhythm, and no silence. A good agent sets the rhythm at the start (“You will hear from me every Friday with showings, feedback, and anything I recommend changing”) and keeps it even in a slow week. If you are the one initiating every conversation, that is a finding.

The legal floor in Mississippi

Before judging performance, confirm the basics happened. The “Working With a Real Estate Broker” form “MUST be completed at the FIRST meeting a real estate licensee has with a prospective client.” (MREC instructions) Exclusive listing and buyer agreements must be in writing with the compensation and “a definite date of expiration.” (MREC Rule 3.2) If either is missing, the agent is already below the floor, whatever else is going well.

The statute also tells you what bad looks like. Grounds for discipline include “making any substantial misrepresentation in connection with a real estate transaction,” “failing, within a reasonable time, to account for or to remit any monies coming into his or her possession which belong to others,” and “acting for more than one (1) party in a transaction … without the knowledge of all parties for whom he or she acts.” (Miss. Code § 73-35-21)

For sellers: four numbers to watch

1. Showings and feedback. You should know about every showing and hear what the buyer’s agent said afterward. No feedback after a week of showings is either a reporting failure or a sign nobody is asking.

2. Days on market against your area. Nationally, the median home sold in September 2026 spent 51 days on the market. (Redfin) Mississippi’s median days on market was 75 that same month, and Hinds County’s was 78. (FRED, Mississippi; FRED, Hinds County) The 2025 NAR profile put the typical seller’s time on market at four weeks. (NAR 2025 Profile) Your agent should be able to tell you the median for your ZIP code and price band, and where you stand against it.

3. Sale-to-list ratio. Nationally, homes sold at 98.5% of list price in September 2026, with 24.1% selling above list and 19.8% taking a price drop. (Redfin) The typical 2025 seller got 99% of final list price. (NAR 2025 Profile, Exhibit 6-19) If your agent’s listings routinely close well below their original list price, the pricing was off at the start, which is the most expensive mistake in the process.

4. The pricing conversation. Sellers ranked “helped me price my home and/or understand my local market” as the single most valuable agent service in 2026: 42% ranked it first and 67% in their top two. (Zillow 2026, Sellers) A good agent shows you the comparable sales, explains why your price is where it is, and comes back after two weeks with data if the market disagrees. An agent who recommended the highest price in the room and now proposes a cut with no analysis did the first part wrong.

For buyers: four signs

1. The homes fit. Half of buyers said what they most wanted from their agent was help finding the right home. (NAR 2025 Profile, Exhibit 4-4) The median buyer viewed seven homes. (NAR 2025 Generational Trends Report) If you are on your fifteenth and none has matched your written criteria, the agent is not listening or not filtering.

2. Offers are fast and reasoned. Buyers ranked “helped me decide the details of my offer(s)” as their most valuable agent service (61% in the top three), followed by paperwork (57%) and leading negotiations (49%). (Zillow 2026, Buyers) A good agent turns your decision into a written offer within a day and explains the price with comparable sales, not with “they’ll never take that.”

3. You see everything. Agents representing buyers “shall submit to buyers/tenants all offers and counter-offers until acceptance.” (NAR 2026 Code of Ethics, Standard of Practice 1-8) The seller’s side has the mirror duty to submit all offers to the seller. (Standard of Practice 1-7) If a counter reached you late or secondhand, ask why.

4. Your position stays private. A buyer’s agent’s duties include confidentiality. (MREC form) If a listing agent seems to know your ceiling, your timeline, or your motivation, something leaked, and it should not have been your agent.

Vendors, and what “doing a good job” is not

A good agent gives you several lender, inspector, and title names and discloses any financial relationship in writing, because federal law prohibits accepting “any fee, kickback or other thing of value” for settlement-service referrals. (CFPB, 12 CFR § 1024.14) Insisting on one vendor is a flag, not a service.

Doing a good job is also not the same as telling you what you want to hear. The research on agent value found “selling prices varied widely among real estate agents,” with top-tier agents adding real value and “a large proportion” not adding enough to cover their cost. (UF Warrington on Cunningham, Gerardi and Shen) The agents in the top tier are generally the ones who said the uncomfortable thing about price early.

If the answer is “not well”

Start with a direct conversation: name the specific gap (no weekly update, no showing feedback, slow offers) and what you need. If nothing changes, call the agent’s principal broker, who is responsible for the licensee’s conduct and can reassign or release you. Post #18 in this series covers changing agents mid-process, and post #7 covers when a problem becomes a complaint to the Real Estate Commission. (MREC Complaint Process)

Frequently asked questions